Covilhã is considered the main gateway to Serra da Estrela. The linear PR11 CVL – Porta da Estrela connects the city with the central massif of Serra da Estrela Natural Park. Its cultural side includes museums, sacred art and art interventions in the urban space, which primarily explore Covilhã’s important past as a centre of the wool industry. The city’s history and its connection to the mountain landscape thus form two distinct focal points.
City History and the Wool Industry
The Museu da Covilhã presents the city’s history across five exhibition levels, from its first inhabitants to the contemporary city. It is housed in a historic building designed by architect Ernesto Korrodi. The exhibition and the building offer different perspectives: the levels span a broad period of time, while the building itself establishes an architectural connection to Covilhã’s history.
Art in the urban space also explores the city’s past. Numerous art interventions form an open-air museum and focus primarily on Covilhã’s important past as a centre of the wool industry. Unlike the broad historical perspective of the Museu da Covilhã, this theme brings the city’s industrial history particularly into focus. This highlights that the city’s history is not rooted in just one era.
Sacred Art and Architecture
The Museu de Arte Sacra is housed in Casa Maria José Alçada, built in 1921 and designed by architect Raul Lino. It preserves more than 600 objects of sacred art dating from the 12th to the 20th century. The building’s date and the collection’s time span represent two different historical scales: the house is a specific building from the early 20th century, while the objects cover several centuries of sacred art.
The Igreja de Santa Maria Maior is the largest and most important church in the city of Covilhã. It was built in the 16th century on the site of the medieval Nossa Senhora do Castelo temple, by order of Bishop D. Cristóvão de Castro. Its construction thus connects a medieval past with a later ecclesiastical redesign. Together with the Museu de Arte Sacra, it offers two different ways to explore religious history: through a collection and through a significant church building.
Factory History, Creativity and City Views
New Hand Lab is located in the Fábrica António Estrela / Júlio Afonso and provides local creatives with workspaces as well as a shop for their products. After the family factory closed, its legacy was preserved and the factory was transformed into a space for artistic and cultural activity. The focus here is therefore not an exhibition about the city’s history, but the transformation of a factory site and its use by local creatives.
The Miradouro das Portas do Sol offers views of the former border with Castile and the landscape once controlled by Covilhã Castle. The view connects the landscape with two historical relationships: the former border and the territory ruled by the castle. This offers a different way of exploring the past than through exhibitions or church architecture.
From Covilhã to the Natural Park
The PR11 CVL – Porta da Estrela provides a direct connection between the city and the mountains. Along its entire route, the linear trail follows the PNSE’s Travessia T14 and the Grande Rota do Geoparque Estrela. It ends at the Centro de Limpeza de Neve in Piornos. This makes it easy to distinguish between the options when planning a trip: the museums, churches and art interventions explore different aspects of the city, while the PR11 provides a named linear route to the central massif.
Those looking for hotels in Covilhã can take these different focal points into account when choosing a destination: city history and sacred art on the one hand, and the PR11’s connection to the mountain landscape on the other.
Discover more destinations: Casegas, Cortes do Meio, Teixoso, Tortosendo, Peso
Return to the main travel overview: Covilhã.
